Baby Birds
by TrixTheFlowery
Summary: Sad little blurb between Severus and Lily before they start their last year of school. Severus learns Lily will never change her mind about James Potter.


He had tried. Merlin had he tried to be the same friend to Lily Evans that he was before everything went wrong. But now that she was seemingly very much in love with Potter rather than him... well, he felt quite alone.

O.o.o.o.o.o.

The conversation had started awkwardly. Even more so for the two aspiring wizards due to their teenaged insecurities and stumbling of words that is common at such an age.

It was the summer break before their seventh year, and Severus found Lily Evans right where he knew he would; at the swings of the playground. Her long legs dangled from the seat of the swing, though her feet no longer swung to and fro as a a pendulum like they did when she was a child. Her legs were long and shapely now... the legs of a woman, he noted when he realized he couldn't keep himself from staring as he closed the distance between them.

He felt her green eyes on him as soon as he came into view, but was unsurprised when his childhood friend said nothing.

"Lily, I-" He began.

"Hi, Sev." She said quickly, cutting him off, greeting him eagerly, as if she didn't want to waste too much time listening to him talk. He noticed that with her rushed greeting, her cheeks reddened slightly, in an all too familiar way to him, and her slender hands tightened around the chains they were holding. He thought that was an odd thing for her to do; the wind hadn't picked up any and she was in no danger of falling.

He raked a knobbly teenage hand through his hair. With an inner sigh he realized it was greasy again even though he had washed it just this morning. He had been sweating a lot though... he was quite nervous being around Lily these days. He never used to be.

"I just wondered how your summer had been." He said finally as he took a seat in the swing next to her in what he hoped was a non-chalant way, but probably wasn't. "Thought I'd come say hello."

"It's been wonderful." Lily said briskly, staring at her feet. It was then that Severus noted she wasn't wearing any shoes. This brought a weak smile to his face at the memory of the pair of them roaming the streets during the summer as children. Neither of them wore shoes back then. To Severus, life was too serious now to forgoe shoes, even for a little while. "And you?"

"Good." He said, also very curt. "It's been good."

"Good." His Lily said, digging her toes into the sand, wiggling them.

Silence fell, awkward and thick between the two. Severus kicked at the ground with his toe and cleared his throat nervously, feeling suddenly more apprehensive than he had when he decided to have the conversation he was about to start. He was taking a calculated risk but after much thought he had decided that he would rather try with Lily rather than wallow in unanswered questions.

He drew himself up, looking like a wilted plant even at his bravest. "So... I heard you and Potter are... going together." He managed to get the first bit out casually enough, but the last bit was lamentably rushed and almost accusatory in his own ears.

"Yeah." Lily said, still watching her toes. "We are."

The confirmation, although he suspected it, hurt none the less coming from her. His breathing stopped working properly, the steady even rhythm of his lungs filling and deflating ceased, and any breaths he continued to take felt sharp and harsh. He fought hard to maintain composure and poise in the face of such a damning revelation.

"I'm sorry." She said quite suddenly, catching Severus off guard.

"For what?"

She drew lines in the sand with her feet distractedly. "I feel awful about everything." She admitted.

"I see." He said, his voice coming from deep in his throat. "Are you happy?"

Her perfect lips formed the word, "Terribly." And she fell silent again, although she now wore a slight smile, as if remembering something that was not for him to know. He knew she was thinking about HIM.

"I'm glad to hear it." He said, having no other option at this point but to trust his own voice, even though it was the most likely culprit for betrayal. He had been about to tell her she deserved all the happiness in the world, just not from James Potter when she surprised him with a question of her own.

"Are you?"

"Pardon?" He ventured, not quite getting her meaning.

"Are you happy, Sev?" Her voice came out weak and small. He looked sideways at her, through the lines of black hair impeding his vision, he could see that her toes had left the sand and her feet were neatly huddled together, resting on the sand like two baby birds that had fallen from their nest.

"If you're happy then I'm happy." He lied. There was an ounce of truth to the lie in that Lily being as sad and sorrowful as he would break his heart, but why did it have to be HIM?

"Thanks." She said quietly and silence fell once more, giving way to birds chattering, and the sound of muggle traffic on distant asphalt. A muggle lawn mower roared somewhere down the street and muggle sprinklers could be heard, their un-ending pattern of "click-click-click-tsssssssst" looping over it all, emphasizing exactly how dismally the conversation had stalled.

"I'm still sorry." She said, finally ending the silence and reminding him of himself two years previous. She refused to accept his apology then, a dark part of him begged to know why he should accept hers now.

"What for?" Severus asked, turning his head again, his eyes coming into intimate contact with hers; she had been looking at him while he was turned away. Black eyes landed on green, and she quickly turned away, back to the sand, her copper hair swinging over her shoulder from the speed in which she did this.

"For not talking to you all summer. I could have at least come to visit."

It dawned on him now why she hadn't. Visiting meant having this conversation... something she had clearly wanted to avoid.

"This isn't what I wanted to happen." She explained sullenly. Severus hated how serious their conversations had become. How sad she looked simply because they were speaking face to face for the first time in nearly a year, short of muttering requests for potion ingredients over a classroom table. "I wanted you, Sev. I wanted to wait for you, till after school... to protect you from the boys because I knew that if we were together, they would be even worse to you than they already were. But I just couldn't wait anymore. I guess it shows my promises are pretty rubbish, hey?"

His heart shrivelled and guilt continued to press in on him. Had he messed up THAT badly?

"I hold no grudge." Not against you, at least. He thought to himself. "If you're happy, then really, I'm fine, Lily."

She looked at him purposefully this time, her emerald eyes weepy and laden with guilt, but also holding a familiar stubborness; in that moment he knew the stubborn glint was writing on the wall and unparalled proof that Lily Evans was not going to go back on the decision she had made. It was a look he had come to know well from the fiery girl. "You're the last person I'd ever want to hurt." He knew it was another attempt at an apology, and it took everything inside his crushed soul not to snarl back that it was already far beyond the opportunity for any such thing to be avoided. Instead he gathered his words and veiled them just as she had veiled hers.

"I was hurt that you didn't think to tell me." He said, the deep baritone his voice had evolved to over the summer lending much more strength to the statement than it would have possessed otherwise. The arrival of manhood however, still did not cover the slight tremor that peaked audibly midway through the phrase.

"I'm a coward, Sev." She said in a sombre, lifeless tone. "I was afraid."

"Of what?" He asked, failing this time to keep the incredulity from his voice. "Afraid I was going to have The Dark Lord himself come and personally exact revenge on Potter on my behalf?"

Lily shot him a dark look. "Don't even joke about that sort of thing around me, Severus. I'm not one of your Slytherin friends."

The venom in her words immediately cowed him, and he resumed staring at the ground.

"I was afraid to say it." Lily said. It seemed that all of the hardness in her words had left as quickly as she had summoned it. " I was afraid to break my promise and admit it not only to you, but myself as well."

Severus shuffled his feet on the ground some more and swept a few wayward strands of hair behind his ear before speaking in what he hoped would come across as aloof. "I'll admit I was disappointed to hear it, but I'd rather see you happy than waiting around for someone like me."

"It's all my fault. I was crazy to think I could keep waiting... things are, well, they're just too different now. I'm just too impatient and impulsive, I suppose."

Severus found no solace in the look on her face just then. If he had any doubt that she was not being honest, it was immediately dispelled by the way her downturned eyes shone with tears. Had he not made one foolish mistake years earlier, neither of them would be this miserable right now.

"I'm glad you found someone, then." It sounded stupid, even as the words tumbled from his mouth, but what else could he possibly say to that?

"Yeah... me too." She said very quietly, once again having a private thought that Severus knew was indicative of how strongly she felt for Potter. He couldn't help but wonder when this had all happened. Silence fell again as they both wandered off into their own personal realms of questions and what-ifs. The sun was beginning to sink low in the sky, and their shadows stretched further and further with each passing minute that they sat in silence.

"I... uh, I'll still always be around for you, Sev... you know. If you ever need me to be..." she trailed off rather lamely as if she wasn't sure how he'd react.

"Of course, nothing will change that." He heard himself say, unable to keep the sadness from his voice because he knew that it had changed already... with the utterance of one, poorly chosen word. They may be able to feign friendship through their final year of school, but Severus knew that there would never be such a thing as going back to innocent friendship. There would always be something more tugging at him, and perhaps her too.

"I'm glad to hear it." Lily said, offering a slightly watery, but genuine smile to him. "You'll be my facetious mate til the end, Sev."

"As will you be." He said, keeping his emotions firmly in check; it was something he was getting used to. "I hope you all the best with him."

"Thanks, Sev." Lily said. He felt her hand brush gently against his own and he let go of the chain, allowing her to curl her fingers between his. Her palms were sweaty and nervous, but it didn't stop him from squeezing her hand lightly within his own. "I hope you find someone who loves you as much... if not more than I did... than I still do, I guess. And I- I hope you can be happy."

Happiness had eluded him until she came into his life, he knew it would continue to do so after she left it. "I think that'll be hard to find." He voiced.

"You're not a difficult person to love, Sev."

"You're the first." He said, almost daring her to prove him wrong, but remembering her hand in his.

"And I won't be the last." She said confidently. "Trust me."

"One can only hope." He muttered, and they were silent until the sun finally disappeared behind the horizon.


End file.
